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There is this man living in San Francisco named Frank Chu who claims that he and his family were secretly filmed by the CIA and that the footage was beamed to distant galaxies where it was made into a movie called "The Richest Family", but that Bill Clinton used his presidential powers to block Frank from getting the royalties from the movie.

Interestingly, Frank also claims that "telepathic scientific inventions" owned by the CIA are constantly trying to brainwash him. He claims that these "telepathic scientific inventions" have the power to control people's movements, to change their tone of voice, their personalities, etc.

What's interesting though is that Frank's brother Jack claims that Frank showed none of these behaviors during his childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood. Frank was a normal person, a straight-A student in high school, and he became this way in the middle of college. That is when Frank started receiving the "telepathy" from the "CIA's telepathic scientific inventions" informing him that he was a movie star, controlling his personality, controlling his movements, etc. So he started off as a normal, conscious person and then became a somewhat bicameral person.

The question is why, if bicamerality is obsolete in today's modern conscious society? Why do you think Frank switched all of a sudden around age 21 from being a fully conscious person to being a partially bicameral person?

Early twenties is actually the typical age of onset for auditory hallucinations or what's often labeled as schizophrenia. I don't think there is a definitive explanation for this. It may have something to do with hormones, etc. but I haven't researched that aspect of it in a few years, so maybe there are some new ideas on this.

The actual story is probably much more complex, as we also hear of many people with imaginary companions in childhood who never stop hearing the voices. Because they are often functioning well with their voices, they don't seek help and it doesn't get reported in the medical literature. Marius Romme and his colleagues such as Dirk Corstens (who spoke at the recent Julian Jaynes Society conference) in the Netherlands are helping to promote the fact that many people hear voices fairly regularly who are are not being treated, etc.

As a side note, a childhood friend who was diagnosed with schizophrenia (also in his early twenties) in hindsight also had some very odd behaviors in childhood. I wonder now whether or not some voices were in fact present.

As far as your question as to why this happens, it seems likely that there is a genetic component to this, that is triggered in the environment in some but not others, and that the transition to consciousness is not yet complete. Based on what I've seen, there is a large cultural component to this, and I think it is likely that voice hearing could be encouraged in almost anyone. You see this especially in some non-Western societies, where hearing voices is actually the norm.

Looking at all of these different issues (imaginary companions, voice hearing among the normal/non-clinical population, voice hearing in pre-literate societies, command hallucinations that direct behavior in much the same way as Jaynes describes, etc.) through the lens of Jaynes's theory would make a great research project.